


That One Time All Ryan Lochte Wanted Was a Bag of Skittles But Nearly Drowned in a Tidal Wave of Evil Only to Fall Into a Volcano Full of Alien Spaceship Waste Matter

by orphan_account



Series: the ceiling can't hold us [1]
Category: Swimming RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Mild Language, Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's it. That's the whole thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Time All Ryan Lochte Wanted Was a Bag of Skittles But Nearly Drowned in a Tidal Wave of Evil Only to Fall Into a Volcano Full of Alien Spaceship Waste Matter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hadrons_collide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hadrons_collide/gifts).



Ryan is the kind of guy who works hard while taking time to look like he's hardly working. He's not a saint. He's just a freelance journalist and that's plenty of work already.

It's a good thing Cullen referred Ryan to his editor for an article about the repercussions ofthe existence of superheroes, because if he hadn't Ryan would have had to look forward to months of eating nothing but Cup Noodles for lunch and only that. So he buys himself a direct flight from JFK International to LAX, and that takes him from sleepy Gainesville, Florida to Atlantis, California.

Atlantis is smack dab in between Trinidad and Fort Dick, and has seen a tremendous spike in super villain attacks in the last seven months. Ryan is a smart guy, and he smells a story brewing under his nose like the best beef stew ever.

Or maybe that's an actual stew in a real metal pot nearly burning on his very hot stove. Giving the stew a quick stir, Ryan leans against the counter meditatively once again. Tomorrow, he will go out and look for a place where his research can begin.

When he wakes up in the morning, buttery California sunshine drips into his room from between his shutters, he rolls over grumpily.

"No. Bad sunshine."

He misses Carter but he knows his dog is relatively safe with his brother. Relatively being the operative word.

As Ryan walks out of his apartment complex what he finds, instead of a solid lead onto why Atlantis is attracting so much evil, is a cute guy running down his street with two dogs on a leash and calves of steel. His hair is cropped close to his head and his dark shirt is sticking to his skin. His face is a study in concentration. Ryan stares at his silhouette fading into the distance.

"Yeah, that's the highlight of my morning too." Someone behind him says.

Ryan jumps embarrassingly high and may or may not make a sound like a small dog crying.

"Hi! I'm Allison, I live in the apartment two doors down from yours. That was Michael, my roommate."

"Sorry, shit, I didn't mean--your broyfriend--I--uh."

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend. We're just friends living together because he can't pay the rent on his own, and to be honest, neither can I." Her lips twist into a wry grin and Ryan finds himself smiling back.

"Yeah, property here is, like, crazy expensive."

"Yup. So what's your name? And have you had breakfast yet? Let's go get coffee, so then I won't have to feel guilty about not having gotten you a house-warming gift."

And then she's dragging him down the street in the same direction Michael ran down with Ryan helpless trailing along in her wake.

She has a surprisingly strong grip and as she talks she gestures with her free hand pretty happily.

"Ryan." He blurts out embarrassingly when she asks him what he wants to order as they stand side by side in a little cafe that smells of cinnamon and vanilla and baked goods. "My name is Ryan."

She cocks her hip, slips a strand of hair behind her ear, and laughs at him, leaving him to soak in the sound of her voice that pitters and patters against his skin as cool and gentle as rain in spring.

*

Ryan catches glimpses of three different good vs. evil battles in person, watches ten different buildings collapse in on themselves during said battles broadcasted on the nightly news, and participates in four emergency evacuations (two of them during the night) from his building all within a week and a half's worth of time living in Atlantis.

Every time there is an evacuation, he grabs his laptop and his phone because those are his babies and usually within reach. He never ever sees Allison or Michael leave their room though, or even return to the building after the danger has been "dispelled". But every morning they are there in the lobby chatting in front of the stair cases, complaining about how they had to wake up so early even though they stayed out so late last night right along with all the other neighbors. Ryan grows worried. Maybe they're ignore the alarms and stay in their rooms? That's so incredibly unsafe.

He even actively searches for them in the crowds of apartment dwellers that sometimes wait outside the complex for the danger to pass.

"Why are you never there?"

"Oh, we get bored, we've been through so many drills, so we head over to the kids park a couple blocks down. You know, to pass the time and stuff." Allison says when he asks after the latest drill.

"The swing set is great." Michael adds. He has really nice hands too, Ryan notices, and really nice arms. Just a very nice everything. He even has a smile that's nice, complete with crooked teeth and pink gums that Ryan finds oddly charming.

"Yeah, only in theory. You hardly fit on it." Allison says, poking him in the ribs, and that only draws Ryan's attention to how nicely his blue shirt stretches across his broad shoulders.

"Jealous." Michael says at last and nods sagely. "You are jealous my love of the swing set is truer than your love for the slides."

Allison shakes her head fondly and gives Ryan a look, as if he should understand how she feels right now, partly exasperated but unwilling to give up the feeling because it is tempered with good humor and _love_ for such a huge dork.

Yeah, Ryan knows the feeling, the same one curling up like smoke in the spaces between his heart and his guts, chaining him to Atlantis and making him feel all warm inside.

He doesn't get to join them in the alleged park because there is not fifth evacuation to participate in.

*

It's actually Saturday afternoon, but it still feels like morning to Ryan who woke up at noon. There's knocking at his door and as he groggily makes his way over with glasses and fuzzy monkey slippers on, he is greeted with Allison's cheery smile and Michael's shy grin when he looks through the peep hole, their heads distorted by the glass but their eagerness palpable even through the door.

"Want to come over for dinner and maybe a game of...what was it again? Tuna? Bass?" Allison asks when Ryan finally releases the deadbolt and unlocks the door.

"Call of Duty and pizza, are you up for it?" Michael interrupts smoothly and he smiles that smile that has Ryan in a pile of goo on the ground and he finds himself nodding even though he was going to fiddle some more with his article. He's almost half way done.

"Uh, sure. I'm game."

"Excellent! Get changed and come on over. Michael is totally excited to kick your ass."

"Am not!" Michael says, and he makes a mock horrified face that has Ryan chuckling as he closes the door.

Stepping into the apartment two doors down, he is surprised by how it smells faintly like the sea, like salt and seaweed and gritty sand.

"Did you get like "Seabreeze" from Febreeze or something?"

"Totally." Allison says, but her cheer sounds forced this time. Ryan drops the subject like a hot potato and wishes that sometimes he actually did grow a brain to mouth filter like his mom had hoped and distracts himself by cooing over Michael's beautifully personalized Xbox. He proceeds to shout Hail Mary's at the controller gods before starting up the game because he is totally going to whip Michaels' sorry ass.

"You suck."

"Shut it, I am too great for the likes of you." Ryan says.

And they game until the pizza arrives without Ryan even noticing because he's been too busy laughing and falling over Michael as they try to nudge and push with feet and legs and elbows to distract each other. It's just a lot of fun to be able to pretend like he's not an almost full-fledged adult trying to make his way in the world. It's just him and Mike at Allison's house having fun on an Xbox and it feels easy, right, simple.

"You two are so weird," Allison says, but she never says it with any venom. Ryan justifies the very sudden rush of total and undiluted affection for her because she also happens to be holding the two giant boxes of pizza. "Everything toppings, hope you don't have averse feelings towards anchovies and olives, Ryan." She continues.

"Nope."

Michael and Allison look at him appreciatively when he says this. They make him to feel right at home sitting at their Formica kitchen table as Allison regales him with stories about different diner patrons she's served and Michael complains about his accounting job. Once, he nearly snorted orange juice out of his nose and Michael had to pat him on the back with his big hand with long, agile fingers and Ryan felt his face flush because he wanted that hand scrabbling against his back as he...

"Ryan? Do you want another cup of water? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He chokes out.

*

The next Saturday he bakes brownies in his oven and knocks on the door two down from his and tries not to feel nervous. He's almost done with his article, but there are few things left that bother him. He's pretty much done everything he could all week other than take a sledge hammer to it to try and craft it into a thing of beauty, so he figures a break and a thank you are in order.

"Hi!" Allison says, wearing only a big sleep shirt as she greets him at the door.

"Uh, I brought _brownies_." Ryan says. He is valiantly attempting to keep his eyes on her face he says this. Her legs look very long and very smooth and her black nail polish is chipped in places but somehow he still finds that so very _Allison_. She seems to familiar.

"They're not pot brownies are they?" Allison asks in a whisper, leaning forward conspiratorially and checking the hallways behind him with quick turns of her head.

She is sleep-warm and Ryan finds himself leaning closer too.

"Nope. Should have said, huh?"

Allison smiles then, stepping out of the way and waving him in.

"Ooh, you're a funny one." She says.

Michael looks like he just woke up too, dressed down in just a pair of boring plaid boxers that has Ryan taking advantage of the fact that he is turned away from him to admire a well muscled back.

"Brownies?" Michael says.

"To thank you for your, uh, inviting me to dinner last week."

"It wasn't a date."

"Did I say it was a date?" Ryan says, trying not to be defensive in the face of Michael's flat expression.

"Hey, let's have lunkfast and then we can talk about what we want to do tonight. There's some kind of summer festival or something going on a couple miles from here at a park or something. Let's head on over." Allison says, one hand on each shoulder of both men and they grumble and mutter and eat slightly burnt brownies with soon-to-be-bad milk and wait for Allison at the door in stony silence.

Ryan decides to be the bigger man, because his mom raised him right.

"If it was a date, then it would have been a really great one."

"Yeah, because Allison and I were _both_ there. Double the fun."

"Please, triple the fun because the Ryan-factor always increases fun. Always."

*

It's very late and Ryan is still awake, nursing his nth cup of coffee and telling himself this is the last edit he will make on his fifth final draft because it is perfect this time. It is flawless.

He's gone back and done all the homework, then double checked his work. He knows the history of Atlantis like it was that of his own hometown, and he knows when the age of superheroes began, Atlantis was hardly on the map at all.

Recently, there have been more super villain attacks only because the city now has actual defenders. What a sad paradox.

He's interviewed locals and wheedled with librarians and even asked to talk with the mayor (like seven times) and all his quotes are compiled and lovely and he just has to weave them in and. He sighs and puts his head onto his keyboard. Sugar. He needs sugar and more caffeine. A latte with extra shots of espresso. Yes.

Ryan walks to the 7-Eleven and buys himself a bag of Skittles and grabs a cup of their awful caffeine sludge.

The night is beautiful, the stars twinkling like the eyes of merry men, or something equally benign, and they watch Ryan in a pleased way, or so he hopes. Atlantis has been good to him, fun and fresh, and he finds that he wouldn't mind staying for a little while longer after he submits his article tonight.

He's a block away from 7-Eleven when he hears it, the rushing sound of the sea suddenly too close for comfort and he only has time to look up before a wave of water as tall as a very tall tree rushes down at him with crushing force.

All I wanted were some damn Skittles, Ryan thinks as he gets slammed into a street lamp by the force of rushing water. It's carried him down many streets into an unknown part of the city. He clings onto the metal pole for dear life.

"Calypso, get as many people as you out of here! I'll handle the ass whose trying to take over the city."

"Only this time! And, Triton, don't be a dick."

Ryan blinks water out of his eyes and blurrily sees a figure in black and green jump down from a building and fly towards him.

Wait.

He didn't hit his head that hard. He blinks again but the image before him does not change, a figure with lovely brown hair tied back into a severe ponytail flies towards him and scoops him up by the armpits. He doesn't even get a chance to switch his state of panic from 'I am going to die by drowning in a magic flood created by an evil megalomaniac' to 'I feel horribly unsafe being carried by only two points of my body while flying over multi-story buildings' when Calypso sets him down on the roof of a supermarket.

"Stay safe, and don't do anything stupid." She says as she flies away.

"Like I have the time or energy for that!" Ryan nearly shouts but thinks better of it. Sassing his savior just might end him.

He watches from afar as Calypso zooms towards two giant waves of water and feels a bit put out that he had been dismissed so easily, but after some reevaluation he mostly feels scared and curious. Calypso drags another man out of the water with her hands, and then makes crackling bands of light hold up a staircase for a group of elderly people to rush up onto the roof of their building.

When he is both curious and scared he does stupid things.

Conveniently, as if the Powers that Be were saying: "Ryan, I would really appreciate it if you used this gift that I am offering you.", a canoe floats down the street towards him, a single paddle not too far behind. After clearing away the nylon rope that had probably tied it to some poor car, Ryan slips in and tries not to grimace at the feeling of sitting in a shallow puddle before paddling towards what looked like two tornadoes made of water spinning in the air just on the horizon.

*

"Triton!" A voice screams and Ryan watches as Calypso zips towards a figure falling from atop a tower of water. The water begins to collapse but she screams again and the tower suspends itself, shakily, a shimmer of green electricity clinging to its edges.

Ryan paddles faster into an oncoming wave and then crests it, riding it with all the expertise of someone who just learned how to steer a canoe, like, twenty minutes ago. There are news helicopters hovering in the distance and some lunatic laughing at the top of the second tower of water.

"Son, I got ninety-nine problems, but bitch ain't one. Like. Literally, if you hadn't thrown yourself in front of your little sidekick over there, you wouldn't be down for the count like a L-O-S-E-R."

"No one gets to misinterpret Jay-Z lyrics like that. No one." Ryan says darkly, frowning up at the figure clad in green and blue sparkly spandex with some sort of headdress on its head. Wait. Is that--is that hair? Ryan can't really tell, but he is horrified. He sees Calypso's flight pattern waver as she tries to carry Triton to a rooftop while manipulating water into a wobbly wall against the supervillain's lazy water whips. The evil guy is making half-assed attempts to break down the only defense Atlantis has, but he seems to be enjoying rather whole-heartedly the physical and mental anguish he is exacting on Calypso.

"Hey! You!" Ryan shouts while actively reminding himself that he is not a dumbass, and this is a super smart plan. "Can I interview you? I'm writing an article about how superheroes have been--uh--not good for humanity. Do you want to make a statement?"

"My first fan! I am so pleased, and because of that I might make you my royal scribe if you ask nicely and perform well. My name is Neptune, and I am going to be king of this city, and one day soon, the king of this planet that is technically seventy percent water. The watery depths are mine to conquer! I just want to say that superheroes are awful, nasty pests that I have been sent to destroy. My home planet is a moon of Jupiter, Io, have you heard of it?"

"You sound like an ass." Ryan says, and Calypso must hear him because she's straightens from her protective crouch over Triton's prone body and smiles, razor sharp, she only wobbles a little from what must be the immense effort of holding up so much water. She stands defiant and proud over the body of her fallen comrade and Ryan thinks if Allison had been in this fight, were standing where Calypso was, she would look the same way.

"Uranus!" Calypso calls out and Neptune looks startled.

"What? You know him too?"

"Yeah, he's a dick though, much like you!"

Ryan wants to lay down and maybe put his head in his hands for a moment, but instead he stands up straighter and shouts to be heard.

"Anything else you might want to add--uh--Mr. Neptune?"

"Yes. I heard that last statement _you_ made Mr. Scribe, and I must say that I cannot stand for that kind of disrespect! Let me show you to the exit. I believe this interview is O-V-E-R."

"Dude, I write for a living. I know how to S-P-E-L-L." And Ryan really does regret trying to out snark an evil super diva from outerspace because a giant water snake snaps him up in the next instant and swallows him into the watery depths of its belly. As he's choking for breath and his vision begins to grow dark, he gets spit out and finds himself rocketing through the sky with the air being stolen from his lungs by the grabby fingers of the wind.

He's experienced so many new kinds of terrifying today. The hummingbird thud-thud-thud of his heart hardly speeds up in the face of this new danger, and for that he is grateful as he flies in a helpless arc into what looks like an active volcano.

*

As the heat grows more and more unbearable in his impossibly slow descent towards the center of a molten cauldron of lava and horror, Ryan thinks about his family and Carter and if he's getting enough to eat. He worries about Allison and Mike and flooding and how Atlantis had started to feel like home (because they were there). He thinks about Neptune, and how he must have been some kid from some world who was kicked one too many times and woke up one day deciding that he really wanted to go conquer another world, if only for any kind of attention.

As his skin sizzles and burns, Ryan screams, and screams so loud that he feels like his vocal chords might give out, even as his nerve endings are quieted by an intense blast of heat he feels in his bones that are melting, melting, melting as he screams. The liquid in his eyes boil and he pretends he can smell burning hair and flesh because that would mean he was still alive, could still sense things.

Then, he is just floating in an empty space in a whole column of void. When he looks to his sides there is nothing. Only when he looks up at the static sky, buzzing with bits of gray and white, does he vaguely feel any sensation. He tries to flex his fingers and finds that he is flexing a thing, although he doesn't not know what.

Slowly the static clears, and he is just suspended in a column of white light, blinding in the darkness that spreads out into infinite around him. It's like a totally separate plane of existence.

"I. Hello?" Ryan thinks he says. "I--I'd like to go back."

He feels very silly when he seems to just hang there in limbo with no effect.

"Dude. I have to go back and like, un-jump into a volcano. It was an awful decision."

Ryan closes his eyes and thinks about where he has to go. He feels movement and static and looks around, finding himself unmoved.

"This sucks."

A long time seems to pass. But every time he opens his eyes, there seems to be less blinding white light above him. He looks down and cannot gauge how far he has traveled. It is only when his eyes are closed and he worries and ponders about what has happened, does he feel any motion at all.

He thinks of Mike's hands and Allison's smile and the way they complete each other. When Mike gets gloomy, Allison is there making awful jokes, poking and prodding until he reacts to human interaction again. Ryan wonders what gets him down some times.

Allison is genuinely funny, conscious of the people around her, and so optimistic sometimes it makes Ryan feel like standing next to her literally makes life more positive. And Michael's different grins, Ryan wants to chart them all, map them out with his lips and hands and get to know what will make him laugh from deep in his belly.

Early morning dinners and Call of Duty marathons and stupid jokes and coffee runs and the one time he came over with box made brownies, these are the thoughts and memories that stick to him as static buzzes in his ears and carries him away.

I should have just submitted that article after the fourth final draft, Ryan thinks as he is squeezed through the infinitesimally small space between the darkness of infinite and the finite white light he had existed in for, possibly, forever.

*

"So. What now." Ryan says, from inside a box of ice. He's having trouble managing his new abilities. Every time he moves across something he sparks. Kinetic energy makes him antsy. Even just sitting in this cold box Michael made for him, the heat of his body melting the ice, is making it easier and easier for him to reuse the same energy from the same excited water molecules to generate more heat. Waste not want not, says the first laws of thermodynamics.

"We go somewhere else." Allison says. She looks apologetic, but Michael shrugs and reaches out an arm to wrap around her to draw her closer. They stand in front of Ryan's ice room and they look almost guilty, so Ryan flashes a thumbs up in a lame attempt to cheer _them_ up.

"With my two favorite people with me, I really wouldn't mind going anywhere at all. Really."

"Let's head across the Atlantic and go to London." Ryan suggests, thinking of Cullen. "I know someone living there."

"We won't be able to contact them." Allison warns, she looks strange in just her green and black skin tight suit without her mask, but Ryan thinks she looks very pretty, standing there strong and steady as ever.

"Oh. Well, I would feel better with him there anyway, you know? I'm sorry I fell into where you guys had parked your spaceship and kind of destroyed any chances of your return home in the next decade."

"We were kind of planning to stay for awhile." Michael says. He looks down at Allison who nods.

"You guys have to watch the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy with me!"

Ryan and Michael groan.

"I know you're both secretly pleased about this prospect!" Allison crows.

"We totally are." Mike says, and he looks at Ryan with his hazel eyes and Ryan feels his inside catch fire. He lets his eyelids sink to half mast when he calls out to Allison. Michael's eyes smolders, like embers, as they grow hot under the heat of Ryan's gaze.

"Give him a kiss for me?" Ryan says.

"I can do better. Let me give him two." Allison says wickedly, leaning up and pressing her lips to Michael's.

**Author's Note:**

> I claimed this prompt at [Olympic Ficathon Part 2](http://hadrons-collide.livejournal.com/13514.html?view=flat) in December, and after eight months of thinking and putting it off I have finally written a thing. I am sorry you had to receive the thing in such a way, this poor attempt at romantic dramedy, but I am rather proud of how those planet-name jokes turned out. Fun fact: Triton is a moon of Neptune!


End file.
